Generally, positive displacement pumps may be utilized to pump fluids in high pressure applications for a variety of industrial settings such as, but not limited to, hydraulic fracturing, cementing, coil tubing, and water jet cutting. Such pumps may include a reciprocating piston that draws fluid into a pump chamber through a suction valve as the piston moves in one direction and discharges the fluid from the pump chamber via a discharge valve as the piston moves in an opposite direction. During operation, such pump components are often subjected to high working pressures such that regular monitoring may be required to track the health and performance of the pump components.
The early detection of any possible failure mode in such pump components is commonly desired to ensure pump efficiency and to prevent excessive downtime due to unplanned maintenance. For example, the detection of a failure mode, such as leakage, at an early stage may be critical to pump health. In the field, however, a common response to the detection of a leakage may be to replace all of the valves to save downtime while, on the other hand, incurring increases in other costs related to valve replacement. U.S. Pat. No. 7,401,500 discloses a positive displacement pump monitor, which employs an acoustic sensor to merely determine an existence of a leak, but fails to determine the location of the leak.